


Chilled

by Ethel09



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 15:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6913519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethel09/pseuds/Ethel09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sybilla after the end of CM, pondering over her past and her future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chilled

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after the end of CM, and after another story I wrote, called "Richard's death". In that story, Richard died after discovering that Mariotta was unfaithful and disowning his children.

The Dower house seems cold and empty to her, in spite of her faithfull servant’s presence. She knows they don’t understand why she chose to leave her beloved Midculter. They whisper some vague accusations against her daughter-in-law, or even her son. She lets them.

For if the decision was hers alone, if she had to resist Francis who asked her to stay, the truth is that she couldn’t bear to see, day after day, the cold contempt, the silent accusations in Philippa’s eyes.

"Francis forgave you", these eyes said. "But he forgives everyone, except himself. I for one never will. What you did to Francis was unforgivable. You could be the mistress of the house when Richard was its master. But Midculter is no longer yours, in spite of the price you paid to keep it. Now it’s mine, and I don’t want you here."

And so she left.

Francis visits her quite often. His smile is still bright, his wit is still sharp, but when he looks at her, the admirative devotion she used to read in his eyes is gone.

Richard’s memory is no comfort. The last time he looked at her, what she read in his brown eyes was nothing but anger and betrayal, because she had hidden to him Mariotta’s unfaithfulness.

And thus she’s punished twice, once for having protected a son, once for having let the other suffer. All this in order to keep her oath and secure Richard’s ownership on Midculter.

The snowy landscape she can see through the window chills her to the bone. She knows she will die alone. That she’s already alone.


End file.
